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By Stephanie Palazzolo

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Recent Editions

David Luan, cofounder of Adept. Photo via Greylock.

With Adept Deal, Amazon Copies Microsoft; Do Businesses Really Need GPT-5?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 1, 2024 7:00am PDT · 6 comments

I never thought I’d say this about a nearly 50-year-old company, but Microsoft is turning out to be a trendsetter.First, Microsoft’s $10 billion investment and partnership with OpenAI early last year prompted rival cloud providers to team up with conversational artificial intelligence developers—namely, Amazon Web Services’ similar pact with ... I never thought I’d say this about a nearly 50-year-old company, but Microsoft is turning out to...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Photo by Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images.

A Peek Behind OpenAI’s Financials; Don’t Underestimate China

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 27, 2024 7:20am PDT · 1 comment

We repeatedly heard two questions following our report on OpenAI’s staggering revenue growth earlier this month: What percentage of revenue comes from ChatGPT subscriptions versus OpenAI’s application programming interface, through which app developers can access its models? And what are OpenAI’s computing costs?This morning’s in-depth piece... We repeatedly heard two questions following our report on OpenAI’s staggering revenue growth...

Alexandr Wang, co-founder and CEO of Scale AI. Photo by Getty.

What Scale AI Tells Us About Humans and AI

By Laura Mandaro · Jun 26, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

We’re in the throes of artificial intelligence fever, but lessons from the last AI hype cycle still linger. Nearly four years ago, my colleague Amir published two stories detailing how businesses were starting to use artificial intelligence in meaningful (if sometimes rarified) ways, from checking the health of a Norwegian fish farm’s stock... We’re in the throes of artificial intelligence fever, but lessons from the last AI hype cycle...

OpenAI Ceo Sam Altman. Photo by Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images.

Businesses Want Slower AI Models—And That Might Hurt Nvidia

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 25, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

OpenAI Ceo Sam Altman. Photo by Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images.

Businesses Want Slower AI Models—And That Might Hurt Nvidia

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 25, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

OpenAI isn’t normally an acquirer of other companies but it has announced two purchases in the last week, of search and analytics firm Rockset and collaboration startup Multi. Both highlight how OpenAI is focused on enterprise offerings, and features that big business appreciate such as retrieval augmented generation, despite the attention... OpenAI isn’t normally an acquirer of other companies but it has announced two purchases in the...

Klarity co-founders Nischal Nadhamuni (left) and Andrew Antos (right).

Startup Klarity Raises $70 Million to Automate Document Reviews

By Kalley Huang · Jun 24, 2024 7:00am PDT

Read through enough contracts, invoices or purchase orders—any business documents, really—enough times, and your eyes probably glaze over. Ondrej Antos experienced it as a law clerk nearly a decade ago. When Antos met Nischal Nadhamuni at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2016, the pair went on a three-hour-long walk in... Read through enough contracts, invoices or purchase orders—any business documents, really—enough...

Chart by Shane Burke

A New (and Better) Approach to Measuring LLMs’ Intelligence Has Arrived

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 20, 2024 7:45am PDT · 1 comment

Finally, there’s good news from the never-ending quest to evaluate how good a large language model is. LMSYS, an organization that benchmarks LLMs, released findings last month on how the performance of LLMs changed between normal queries and harder ones that require more reasoning capabilities. LMSYS uses “Elo rankings,” a measure of... Finally, there’s good news from the never-ending quest to evaluate how good a large language...

Shanghai's skyline. Photo by Qi Yang via Getty Images.

Americans Are Impressed with China’s AI

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 18, 2024 7:00am PDT · 2 comments

American pundits like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt like to say China is behind the U.S. in artificial intelligence by several years. But American AI researchers increasingly tell me that these people underestimate Chinese researchers. Instead, by restricting Chinese access to American tech, the U.S. has pushed the country to forge its own path... American pundits like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt like to say China is behind the U.S. in...

Photo via Adobe Stock.

The Multi-Billion-Dollar Industry You’ve Never Heard Of And The Startups Working To Take It Down; A Look into the Mind of Vinod Khosla

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 17, 2024 7:00am PDT

Photo via Adobe Stock.

The Multi-Billion-Dollar Industry You’ve Never Heard Of And The Startups Working To Take It Down; A Look into the Mind of Vinod Khosla

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 17, 2024 7:00am PDT

The old adage that you should never get into a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel load doesn’t resonate in the digital age as well as it used to. But there’s no doubt news publishers’ complaints about AI startups pirating their copyrighted material has drawn plenty of coverage. There may be a solution. A growing number of... The old adage that you should never get into a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel load...

Photo by Bloomberg via Getty Images

OpenAI’s Revenue Surprise; Nvidia Could Spark a Talent War with TSMC

By Aaron Holmes and Qianer Liu · Jun 13, 2024 7:00am PDT

The biggest question our team has faced upon reporting OpenAI’s revenue growth in the past year or so was whether Microsoft was a critical contributor to the startup’s sales. Most people we talked to had assumed Microsoft was, but the definitive answer is actually “No.”While Microsoft sells OpenAI models to its own Azure cloud customers, the ... The biggest question our team has faced upon reporting OpenAI’s revenue growth in the past year...

Photo via Getty Images

What On-Device Models Mean for Open-Source AI

By Kalley Huang · Jun 12, 2024 7:45am PDT

When Apple on Monday showed off the artificial intelligence that will soon land in some of our iPhones, some developers praised the company for running many of the new features directly on the iPhone, rather than in the cloud as other companies do. Like Apple, which has made user privacy and security central to its marketing, these developers... When Apple on Monday showed off the artificial intelligence that will soon land in some of our ...

Craig Federighi, Apple's SVP of Software Engineering. Screenshot via Apple.

Apple Eyes Deals with Google and Anthropic After OpenAI; Apple Grades Its LLMs While Databricks Grades AI Usage

By Amir Efrati · Jun 11, 2024 7:00am PDT

On a basic level, none of the artificial intelligence Apple announced on Monday came as a surprise. But there's a big difference between a news report describing what Apple is going to launch and seeing the finished product, and in that regard Apple delivered a cogent presentation that put Google's sprawling AI keynote from May to shame.Also, as... On a basic level, none of the artificial intelligence Apple announced on Monday came as a...

The Apple Park campus in Cupertino, Calif. Photo by Anadolu via Getty Images.

‘Apple Intelligence’ is About to Test Regular People's Appetite; Meta Gets Grilled on Safety in Paris

By Amir Efrati · Jun 10, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

The Apple Park campus in Cupertino, Calif. Photo by Anadolu via Getty Images.

‘Apple Intelligence’ is About to Test Regular People's Appetite; Meta Gets Grilled on Safety in Paris

By Amir Efrati · Jun 10, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Excitement this morning about Apple's planned reveal of artificial intelligence features during its WWDC event for app developers is more than warranted. While it might not be as mind-blowing as the Kling AI video teasers from China’s Kuaishou last week, Apple’s expected improvements to Siri; new tools to let people automatically generate... Excitement this morning about Apple's planned reveal of artificial intelligence features during...

Photo via Getty Images

Is Plagiarism a Stain on Open-Source AI?

By Kalley Huang · Jun 6, 2024 7:15am PDT · 1 comment

The open-source artificial intelligence community has been buzzing over allegations that three U.S.-based developers—including two Stanford University undergraduates—copied parts of a multimodal large-language model developed by a Chinese lab founded by Tsinghua University and Beijing-based AI startup ModelBest.This incident might seem trivial... The open-source artificial intelligence community has been buzzing over allegations that three...

Photo by Moor Studio via Shutterstock

The, Um, Psychology of, Like, AI-Generated Voices; Effective Altruists Strike Back at OpenAI

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 5, 2024 7:00am PDT

OpenAI’s forthcoming artificial intelligence-powered voice assistant, which allows users to speak with ChatGPT on their phone, has generated tremendous buzz in the industry, and not just because of ScarJo. That’s because developing AI models that can understand human voices and generate realistic AI voices is a lot harder than you might think.... OpenAI’s forthcoming artificial intelligence-powered voice assistant, which allows users to speak...

Chart by Shane Burke.

How Long Can OpenAI’s First-Mover Advantage Last?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 4, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

As companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta Platforms race to leapfrog each other with marginally faster, cheaper or more accurate large language models, a number of developers have told me that these LLMs are beginning to reach parity when it comes to performance.And now, new exclusive data from Kruze Consulting, a finance and HR... As companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta Platforms race to leapfrog each other with...

Div Garg, co-founder and CEO of MultiOn, at the GenAI Summit in San Francisco May 29. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Could This Startup Be Amazon’s Horse in the Agent Race?

By Anissa Gardizy · Jun 3, 2024 7:10am PDT

Div Garg, co-founder and CEO of MultiOn, at the GenAI Summit in San Francisco May 29. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Could This Startup Be Amazon’s Horse in the Agent Race?

By Anissa Gardizy · Jun 3, 2024 7:10am PDT

Artificial intelligence that automates multi-step tasks on the web, such as organizing and booking a trip, is still under development. But it may be only a matter of months before big developers such as Google, Meta Platforms, OpenAI and others release such time-saving tools.We’ve been wondering where Amazon will be in this race, and how it... Artificial intelligence that automates multi-step tasks on the web, such as organizing and...

Photo via Shutterstock

The Cold, Hard Numbers of AI Returns

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 30, 2024 7:00am PDT · 3 comments

Over and over again, I’ve heard the same mantra from AI founders and big tech execs: 2023 was the year that businesses experimented with AI, but 2024 will be the year they truly put it to use.So for the last five months, we’ve been on the lookout for the cold, hard numbers demonstrating what value businesses and consumers are getting from... Over and over again, I’ve heard the same mantra from AI founders and big tech execs: 2023 was the...

Photo by Getty

Why OpenAI’s Safety Reorg Might Actually Be a Good Idea; An Ex-OpenAI Board Member Speaks Out; Meta Enters the Chatbot Subscription Race

By Aaron Holmes · May 29, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

When the leaders of OpenAI’s “superalignment” team quit two weeks ago, CEO Sam Altman found himself once again facing allegations that he’s not sufficiently worried about artificial intelligence bringing about the end of the world (or other, less-apocalyptic safety concerns). After the high-profile resignations, OpenAI said it had folded... When the leaders of OpenAI’s “superalignment” team quit two weeks ago, CEO Sam Altman found...

XAI and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Photo by Sonny Tembelaka/AFP via Getty Images

Sizing Up Musk's xAI Supercomputer

By Amir Efrati · May 28, 2024 4:00am PDT · 3 comments

You’re going to hear the term “supercomputer” a lot in the coming months. It’s just a cool way of saying “a large cluster of servers running Nvidia chips,” but without as many words. Anyone who’s anyone in AI is going to talk about their supercomputer, and we imagine that Elon Musk will be one of them—especially after Anissa on Friday reported... You’re going to hear the term “supercomputer” a lot in the coming months. It’s just a cool way of...

Art by Mike Sullivan/Midjourney

More Startups Seek Buyers But Price is a Problem; Nvidia’s Eternal Sunshine

By Amir Efrati · May 23, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Art by Mike Sullivan/Midjourney

More Startups Seek Buyers But Price is a Problem; Nvidia’s Eternal Sunshine

By Amir Efrati · May 23, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Conversational artificial intelligence startups are singing the acquisition blues. As Natasha and I reported on Wednesday, Adept, which raised more than $400 million from investors at a $1 billion-plus valuation to develop artificial intelligence agents, has been exploring a buyout, including from Meta Platforms. A Meta deal is unlikely, though.... Conversational artificial intelligence startups are singing the acquisition blues. As Natasha and...